Psychopaths have been found to have a marked difference in their brain scans compared to other people.
17:04, 13 May 2026
The brain is a very complex organ as it monitors a person’s emotions, sensory perceptions, health, emotions, heart rate, and even our breathing. With ongoing studies looking into the different facets of the brain, neuroscientists have found a marked difference between people with psychopathic traits and those with none.
Using MRI scans, scientists have discovered that a region of the brain that is involved with reward and motivation was larger in individuals with psychopathic traits compared to people with few or no traits. In comparison to the control group, the team found that the corpus striatum was on average 10 per cent larger in psychopathic individuals.
This study has been published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, with the new discovery being found by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), the University of Pennsylvania, and California State University.
Psychopathy is typically associated with egocentric and antisocial personality traits. People with strong psychopathic tendencies often show reduced empathy, little remorse for harmful actions, and in some cases can have a greater likelihood for criminal behaviour.
The striatum, which sits deep in the forebrain, plays a crucial role in decision-making, movement planning, motivation, reinforcement, and how the brain responds to rewards.
In order to assess where psychopathic traits have a biological aspect, the researchers scanned the brains of 120 people in the United States. Each of the participants were interviewed using the revised Psychopathy Checklist, which is a widely used psychological assessment to measure specific traits.
Assistant Professor Olivia Choy, from NTU’s School of Social Sciences, a neurocriminologist who co-authored the study, said: “Our study’s results help advance our knowledge about what underlies antisocial behavior such as psychopathy.
“We find that in addition to social environmental influences, it is important to consider that there can be differences in biology, in this case, the size of brain structures, between antisocial and non-antisocial individuals.”
Over the years, scientists have increasingly recognised that the striatum could also be tied to social behaviour in humans and certain difficulties with social functioning.
By comparing the MRI scans and the psychopathy assessments, the scientists found that a larger striatum was linked to a stronger need for stimulation. This included impulsive behaviour, thrill-seeking, and excitement. In the study, impulsivity and stimulation-seeking accounted for a 49.9 per cent association with psychopathy.
Professor Adrian Raine from the Departments of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology at University of Pennsylvania, who co-authored the study, said: “Because biological traits, such as the size of one’s striatum, can be inherited to child from parent, these findings give added support to neurodevelopmental perspectives of psychopathy – that the brains of these offenders do not develop normally throughout childhood and adolescence.”
In typical human development, the striatum tends to shrink as a child matures. However, the enlarged size of the cluster of nuclei raises the possibility that psychopathy could be linked to differences in brain development as a child and teen.
Associate Professor Andrea Glenn from the Department of Psychology of The University of Alabama, said: “By replicating and extending prior work, this study increases our confidence that psychopathy is associated with structural differences in the striatum, a brain region that is important in a variety of processes important for cognitive and social functioning.
“Future studies will be needed to understand the factors that may contribute to these structural differences.”
Scientists are continuing to develop their understanding of why the striatum may be enlarged for people with psychopathic traits. Future studies may help to clarify how genetics, development, environment and life experiences interact with the shape of the brain systems that are involved with reward-seeking.
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